Iran!

So, we made it, and internet seems to be fine so that's good but you'll be glad to hear my reports won't be so wordy as it'll be typing directly in at internet sessions as opposed to by the light of the moon on beaches and so forth.

Tonight we are in Tabriz, not far south of the boarder through still a good four hours on from it- we thought Turkey was big, Iran is HUGE! We've already had to restrict what we're going to get around to seeing as we're 6 days late arriving but we've had fun on those days else where so it's not bad really. An extremely nice English speaking younger guy guided us through the customs complexities at the boarder (the non joy of arriving with a car) and was really sweet, chatting to us throughout and bringing us refreshments. We were a bit guarded with him, waiting for the financial sting in the tail and were slightly dazed by the end of it all to find that there wasn't one! We just had to hand one of the stamped forms on the way out in the second section and we were free to go. Not so easy, the next lot, as we had heard they insisted we buy our diesel ration card before we leave, even though this is not the case in the Southern boarder past Van. We had heard stiff barganing was the main trick here and we got him down a bit but were still probably about 100Euros down more than we should have been. OH well, it was well dark by that point- we'd been at the boarder for about 4-5 hours and it was worth it to get away.

Managed to find a nice enough 'safe' hotel, (clean rooms, western loo, hot shower, onsite resturant- not exciting but definatly reassuringly dull!) and set up there for the night. We wold have liked to wander about the town in search of food but we had to wait until morning to change some money into Rials so we had the excuse to be lazy! Alex completed this money changing action no worries at the bank, (having left him to do this and ALL the hard nosed barganing yesterday I felt a bit pathetic so did all his washing in the hotel room in thanks, talk about steriotypes!)and as we were heading out we ended up taking with us a Taiwanease New Yorker who was casually in search of a ride deeper into Iran. She was on holiday for just 3 weeks and had flown to Turkey and decided to come over to Iran on a whim! I was very impressed by her spontianity and amazed how she does everything not so much with confidence as with a single minded nievity that everything will turn out fine which some how causes it too. When we looked around the hotels in this city and she didn't find what she wanted she managed to convince a hotel to give her the contact details of a better one! I was very impressed. The day all want well except when we stopped and asked some nice enough looking guys

in a shop directions in Tabriz. One insisted on coming with us and showing us the way and took us to absolutely the most expensive place in town so we asked him to direct us to a cheaper one in the guide and then he started demanding about half of what a the room and dinner and breakfast cost us last night for his services. We weren't prepared to pay that much and he made a real scene and we took him most of the way back to where we'd picked him up and Alex had to really shout at him to leave which finally he did. Shame because we would have like to give him something but he was really being cheeky and then downright nasty. Anyway, it was fine and it all worked out well. We found a nice place to stay, had a nice dinner in a local cafe and found a good internet cafe. ALl is well with the world. ON towards but not as far as Terhan tomorrow and south on from there towards Shiraz.